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CMS (Joomla) or Building website from scratch

I am planning to build a website for work. This will be my first website. I donít know HTML, CSS, Java or PHP, which I read I must learn in this order. Is it possible to edit the "themes" in Joomla and add the following features:

Inventory: Be able to log all the products received, their expiration dates, etc. Log when each item in the inventory is used up, display what products are nearing their expiration, show what must be ordered based on use over the year.

Service Log: When an equipment malfunctions, I want to be able to log when it happened, what happened, was there a service call put in, how was the issue resolved, etc. Once this is done, I want to be able to print a report at any time. If the same issue occurs down the road, I would like the user to be able to use keywords to search and find the reports to easily fix the issue.

Or is it better to build a website from scratch. Would using Joomla be a better alternative? How do I go about doing this?

Now where the frak in a battlestar did you think this was going to do your task?.. Where do you see the option to add data?.. where do you see it able to do complex calculations???...

As you can see, all a cms has to do is hold things in place.. It looks nice but that's it... So in fact you could call a cms a super model... Very pretty but not to bright... When in fact what your asking for is a chess player.. Someone who can think many moves ahead and in many directions...... You couldn't have asked the idea to be wider apart.. and in there lies the laugh!....

JavaScript.. Yes!... Java & Javasrcipt 2 very different things.. JavaScript with the other 3 help make web pages... Java - You walk up to the ATM you put in your card, you enter your PIN, you get some cash.. pretty girl on the screen offers you mortgage rates.. good chance that's Java!.... Java is a language for anything.. You could use it on the web but it got shoved out but flash....

Any way, back to your prob.. so CMS is out!.. option B. do it yourself... Lets think about that?... Hmmm.. Your site will have to think in multiple directions from many points at any time... Lets find an easy demo.. so happens we have one right here!..

This page... what is it?.... In a minute Im going to hit "Reply"... and for a second the page is going to have to think.. The most basic of them all "place text here"....

Lets look into how that was done... move your cursor to somewhere on the page where there's nothing behind it, just plain background colour... and "right click" your mouse... (BOOM!, before I'd finished reading the post) Dylan ignore.... right click should give you a menu of options.. Look for "View Source" or "View Source Code"... click it... this should bring up in notepad the code that makes up this page, a lot more of the code needed is elsewhere....

Have a look at that... and when you can read that as easily as a babies bedtime story... you can start, I repeat START learning how to make your database!.......

Didn't help but now you know....

Option C, D & E

C - Pay someone to build it

D - 1 Year intense training you could make something ugly

E - You said its for work.. and by the sounds of the tasks.. why does it have to be online?... You could probably find a little program somewhere that does all that for you?.. made in Java : )....

So, I'll have to forget about the super model. lol This project is for work, but it's something I am taking on myself to do. I am not getting paid for it. I was planning to do it and show it to my boss. The inventory and service logs are just a couple of ideas. I want the site to be a one-stop-shop for work, to go paperless, be accessible from home.

Option C (Paying someone to build it): I could do this, but the idea is that I want to learn to do it myself. I work in a totally different field, but I always wanted to learn this. I don't actually know how much it would cost to get it build though. Any ideas? If it's not that bad, I might change my mind. There are 1895 lines of code running this page. When I see that, option C does look very, very appealing.

Option D (First ugly prototype): This was my plan. But, I want to get some guidance from people like you before I invest my time in it.

Option E: Online means having it available anywhere. E.g., managing inventory from home.

No worries mate.. My advice, totally do it yourself dude! DO IT!.. thoughts on the fly...

I think you'd agree, say work uses it the next 3-5yrs.. think past the PC, in time staff will be walking around with tablets adjusting data.. so build with both in mind (responsive design)... leave the phone out, reduces languages, complications and not really needed for this project... Cool!...

Pro - You know exactly what you want
Con - Instead of starting at ABC, your starting at XYZ

So its going to be a hard road but by no means out of reach..

At the end of the day you're going to have to make a choice.. To take the red pill (php).. or the blue pill (asp)... Google search some "PHP vs ASP" articles to get an idea.. the 2 biggest chess players in the game.. its a 10+ year war...

note: could do with out Javascript, so need to know at least HTML, CSS and a lot of the brains..

Learning order:

Start with a basic program first week or so (notepad++) free just google.. its notepad with a couple of extra goodies.. eg Folder tree menu to see all your doc's.. when learning is handy to see and help the brain (your's)... preview page in browser option in top menu's, handy.... save pages with ext .html not the default .txt same in notepad if you want...